Transferring analog video to hard drive?

[Newc]

Ok, I read somewhere once that an external drive is better for backing up video since it doesn't have to go through the Operating System, which is also doing a billion other things, and therefore won't drop as many frames.
Is this true, and is that regarding digital video only, or analog video as well?
If it covers analog video, can someone recommend a good unit for transferring analog video to PC?
I've currently got an ATI video/capture card, but if I can find an external unit that has a better transfer rate....

[Accept2]

Re: Transferring analog video to hard drive?

I have the ATI card too, but I replaced it with a console DVD recorder. It is way better than any capture device around. It doesnt have any othe time consuming problems, or contrast/brightness problems. I dont know why I screwed around with the ATI in the first place. Just hook it up press record, and you can stick the sucker into the computer DVD drive after.............

[ApeDosMil]

Re: Transferring analog video to hard drive?

I doubt thats true. it will have to go through the O/S no matter what. Internal Harddrives are faster. getting a SATA harddrive/motherboard support will blow away a usb harddrive or a fire wire one.

YOu need a good processor Something above a AMD 2400+ and 512 megs of ram or more to get it to go good.

[442w30]

Re: Transferring analog video to hard drive?

You will have to go through a USB or firewire interface as well as the OS. The best solution is an internal SCSI RAID 0.
Second best Internal SATA RAID 0
Third Best Internal IDE RAID 0.

somewhere in that mix is a single SCSI Drive (U160 or U320)
and then Single SATA Drive.

The ATI card should be OK, just use some decent SW. I had OK results with windows movie maker, but the options are limited and I don't like WMV files.

[Accept2]

Re: Transferring analog video to hard drive?

Wow, you guys make things so complex. I'll stick to my console DVD recorders and NewTek Video Toasters..............

[Newc]

Re: Transferring analog video to hard drive?

Only problem with a standalone recorder is that I'm doing video editing, not just "shoot and burn".
I have to do the editing on the computer, and then transfer it back to tape via DVD (I can burn the DVD on the PC, but to get it to tape I have to put it in my DVD player and loop it to the VCR).
The video quality degrades each time it's processed, so the fewer steps I have to take the better.

As for processor, I've got a P4 2.something GHz with 512 MB Ram, so I should have the speed.
Also when capturing I shut down everything else - all the crap in the Taskbar, disconnect from the 'net, and close any other drive or program window that's open.
But then I am using the freeware Pinnacle Studio 8 that came with the card....
I tried using Premiere (got it from a friend years ago and never found a use for it), and it looked like it was going to do a lot better, which would have spurred me to purchase it, but it started dropping frames like crazy towards the end of a capture, and for the type of stuff I'm doing, that won't work.

I'll try Premiere again with a few Option tweaks - hopefully that'll work.

My board has SATA support, but I don't think my drives do (or is that the other way around? I've got a SATA cable, just can't recall what it came with [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] ).
SCSI is an overly expensive option at this point.

[illumina]

Re: Transferring analog video to hard drive?

you need a better capture card, the like Hauppage ones they make for HTPCs... check www.htpcnews.com for more info.

ATI's mpeg2 capture is software based, which eats your CPU cycles, whereas the dedicated PCI cards are hardware based.

~Eric

[hippietim]

Re: Transferring analog video to hard drive?

Newc, I have a box made by Canopus that is awesome. You can hook up any analog or digital video components in and out. Windows sees it as a generic Firewire video capture device. No drivers required. I guess they've come out with a new model since I got mine a couple years ago. I have the ADVC100. This is the current one like mine:

http://www.canopus.us/US/products/AD...pt_advc110.asp

[442w30]

Re: Transferring analog video to hard drive?

I have a 3.0 and 3.6GHz procs with an ATI card, but yeah, it's CPU based so your right you could get stuttering I suppose. Plus WMA is pretty lame, so It probably just gets crappier looking instead of dropping frames.

I would go with a little more RAM though, if the CPU falls behind and you aren't able to commit the processed data to disk, you could have that problem too. I'd use a Happauge card. IDE should work fine unless it's not in DMA mode (PIO mode).

While you are capturing, keep task manager open and watch memory and CPU utilization. CPU will probably be topped out the whole time but memory shouldn't be.

Also, You can check DMA/PIO mode under Manage your computer --> IDE Controller -->Advanced tab on the IDE controller.

[SeventhSon]

Re: Transferring analog video to hard drive?

[ QUOTE ]
Newc, I have a box made by Canopus that is awesome. You can hook up any analog or digital video components in and out. Windows sees it as a generic Firewire video capture device. No drivers required. I guess they've come out with a new model since I got mine a couple years ago. I have the ADVC100. This is the current one like mine:

http://www.canopus.us/US/products/AD...pt_advc110.asp

[/ QUOTE ]

+1

Tim, I have this unit as well. Works perfectly. Keeps video/audio perfectly in sync. Videophiles rave about this unit on the net. Allows you to capture DV in iMovie (iMac) or MovieMaker (Windows). Once in those programs you can edit. Then you can burn to DVD or you can just save a .mov (iMac) or .wmv (Windows).

BTW, I think Newc had external drive mixed up with hardware based encoding. Yes, hardware encoders bypass the OS when encoding. Software based encoders are a PITA. On iMac, burning a DVD using iDVD uses software encoding and it takes literally all night to burn a DVD.

[Newc]

Re: Transferring analog video to hard drive?

Thanks for the input - I went ahead and ordered the ADVC55 - didn't see the $90 extra benefit of the 110 [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[SeventhSon]

Re: Transferring analog video to hard drive?

Oh, if you capture into Windows Movie Maker, you will need to make sure you have XP SP2. That comes with the new version of Movie Maker that allows you to capture in "pass-thru" mode. iMovie already allows you to do this.

"Pass thru" means that you can control the start/stopping of the capture from the capture software. If it doesn't support pass-thru, then the capture software wants to control an actual digital video camera, sending it a rewind to beginning command, then waiting for a reply, then sending it a play command, etc.

Which reminds me, that's another way to capture your analog video. If you have a digital video camera that supports pass thru, it will be able to take the analog input through the red/white/yellow(or s-video) cables then output DV through the firewire cable.

So if you have an actual digital video camera that does this, then the ADVC is redundant. So you may or may not want to cancel your order!

[ROCKPRO]

Re: Transferring analog video to hard drive?

ADVC55 = An amazing piece of equipment.

[SeventhSon]

Re: Transferring analog video to hard drive?

Also, after you have digitized, do NOT get rid of the original analog sources. Put them in a safe or something.

[Newc]

Re: Transferring analog video to hard drive?

All I have is an analog camera, and yeah I've already learned the lesson about keeping the original tapes - the stuff I'm working on now has somehow "gone missing" - possibly due to the software (Pinnacle Studio 8 ) naming convention automatically overwriting anything that already has that name (Video1, Video2, etc) unless you dump everything in one sitting. Since I'm not able to dump it all at the same time, and I have to shut the program down when I go to work, it's resetting to Video1 when I come back.

Either that or I'm just not finding the stuff since I dumped it a couple of weeks ago [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]